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No, you cannot change that basic structure. Once a man, always a man. But you can always choose how you act with enough focused effort, which eventually becomes habituated and effortless. I don't care about the gay issue, you brought it up with the transexual/transgender topic.

Sorry, it's because I thought you were suggesting that one can change even the parts of oneself that are hardwired, and thereby completely transcend one's entire nature. I guess I thought that, partly because I was trying to say that since so much of our nature is biologically hardwired, including parts that we think are the product of "mind" (whatever that might be), it's neither possible to tinker with it at will, nor wise to attempt it - because I was saying that, basically, I assumed that to argue otherwise would be to argue that one can change even the parts of us that are biologically determined. Following that to conclusion, I just used the sexuality/gender thing as an example, to illustrate my point. My intention wasn't to go into "the issues".

If you nature becomes a limitation or a hindrance, then you go around it to reach your goals.

Okay. I see where you're at now.

All the same, I think it makes more sense to harness that nature, than to try to "go around it". Because wherever you go, whichever route you take "around" it, you'll just be bumping into it again and again.

For instance, If I start to speak out loud in class and I suddenly find that my sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system has been activated and my heart is racing. The problem is that makes it difficult to speak because your body is going into a nervous reaction. You can ignore your limbic system's messages in your brain, but you can't ignore the physical cascade of events it creates....

Hm, okay, but that's a more obvious case. I mean, you can't help but notice when your heart starts racing and other physical clues as obvious as that. But there are a whole lot of other things your biology prompts in you that you've no inkling even what's doing it, and often, think that it IS your conscious mind.

Anyway, this soup won't cook itself so I can't sit here navel gazing with you all night. I'll be back later

I found this quite interesting as I have argued for some time that the secular is as much of a religion as non-secular, for example secular schools have all the same characteristics as faith-based institutes, they are just championing a different cause... Interesting read...

If you nature becomes a limitation or a hindrance, then you go around it to reach your goals. Nature is never changed, but the expression of it is, and can be changed in such a way as to not resemble the basic driving force at all. Emotions and desires that arise out of the midbrain cannot be controlled or stopped in their functioning nearly as much as they can be consciously ignored and made to be irrelevant save for when they produce physiological phenomena below the surface of consciousness (hormones), in which case the conscious mind has to recognize the change and take whatever steps necessary to mitigate the response through indirect means of controlling the parts of the system responsible.

For instance, If I start to speak out loud in class and I suddenly find that my sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system has been activated and my heart is racing. The problem is that makes it difficult to speak because your body is going into a nervous reaction. You can ignore your limbic system's messages in your brain, but you can't ignore the physical cascade of events it creates. Now your options change and you must exercise control over the symptoms. You must focus on controlling the organs (lungs and heart) to suppress the response that was produced subconsciously. You have conscious control over your breathing, so you use that power a s a tool to indirectly control heart rate and blood pressure. A buddhist monk has greater control at higher levels of the system, closer to the brain, so they wouldn't get into the automatic nervous response issue in the first place (and when I was in the practice of meditation for conscious executive control, there was never a time when I didn't have greater control over those sorts of automatic responses).

In summation, the brain is a computer that produces its own programming and can do all sorts of things with its abilities. However, it is very much limited by its own hardware. The computer/brain can create programs that, to some extent, change how the hardware is used. The mind can generate actual hardware/neurological changes, to a degree. It can't change every aspect of the hardware or its organization/function. We have most control over those neurological factors that are more environmentally driven than genetically controlled. For those things we can't exercise control over we simply have to develop a workaround in the programming to reach the same goal. Thus, with the unlimited creative capacity we have within and external to ourselves, there really isn't much that cannot be achieved with the proper knowledge, understanding, and will.

When it comes to controlling our nature, one must know how that nature arises and why. Then one can truly understand the issue and work out practical, functional solutions to either change it or work around it and reach toward loftier goals. What are the neurological factors, what are the psychological factors, and what do I have the power to change? Answering those questions is what gives man the potential ability to to have supreme dominion over the nature of his own existence.

We have most control over those neurological factors that are more environmentally driven than genetically controlled

"We have most control over those neurological factors that are more environmentally driven than genetically controlled"
Please delineate these neurological factors, and how thay are more environmental than genetic.
Also, what is the difference between environmental and genetic control in this context? Is there a mechanism involved? thx.

I found this quite interesting as I have argued for some time that the secular is as much of a religion as non-secular, for example secular schools have all the same characteristics as faith-based institutes, they are just championing a different cause... Interesting read...

Our initial, operational definition of ideology, then, will be "a comprehensive program of action intended to mobilize support for a political agenda."